Prologue

"Morgan," Sasha cried close to her ear. Warm breath on Morgan's neck and the dampness of tears on her cheek were too close not to be real, yet she jerked away from the arms that attempted to cradle her quaking body.

She ran compulsively down the aisle of the plane, darkness and smoke pressing in on her. She could feel its black eyes glowering behind her, raising the tiny hairs on the back of her neck, as it chased her to the cockpit where the door was jammed closed. She threw her body against it, needing to get to the pilot. If she could get to the pilot she could save them, could prevent the plane from crashing.

The plane rocked suddenly, pitched so violently that she was thrown backward against the seats. The pain was intense as she pushed herself upright, her arms braced against the headrests. He was there, behind her, nearly on top of her. She turned to face him and tried to scream but her tiny shrieks of terror caught in her throat.

She struggled to get away from him by trying to claw her way into the aisle, but he grabbed her arm. He was threatening despite his smile as he pulled her toward him. She punched and kicked with all her might but couldn't free herself. In her mind it was as if he wanted to swallow her whole and the adrenaline coursing through her small body did little to help fight him off.

"Please stop this," she whimpered, trying to be calm as he pulled her into his lap.

Once she was wholly in his arms he became gentle. The violence in him seemed to quiet, and for a moment time seemed to stop. He smoothed back her hair, his hands travelling down her back to her waist where he held her firmly, never taking his eyes off her. She stopped struggling as he pulled her closer, her chest heaving against his. She could feel his breath against her cheek, hot and ragged.

The descent of the plane quickened and both of their bodies were thrown upward as it reached zero gravity in the cabin. She felt herself hanging onto him, digging her fingers into his shoulders and burying her face against his neck. Morgan didn't want to see him anymore; she wanted to pretend he didn't exist. She would have cried or screamed, but when she opened her mouth, there was no sound to be heard.

Morgan bolted upright abruptly, her heart pounding, to stare wide-eyed at the ceiling. The vivid reality of the nightmare chilled her despite the almost suffocating heat of her bedroom. It wasn't the first time she'd had this dream, and she doubted it would be the last. She shivered when she recalled how real the man who had been holding her seemed, could still feel his arms around her, his body pressed against hers.

She hugged herself to dispel the graphic images that lingered in her mind, even in the sterile serenity of her bedroom. Tears welled in her eyes, and as she took stock of her surroundings she became aware of her sister, Sasha, lying beside her in the bed crying gently. Morgan lay back down and embraced her sister, finding comfort in the small arms that clung to her.

Part One

Chapter One

Morgan stared at the doctorate diploma in its simple black frame. It had taken her five years to finish the program at Columbia, countless hours of self-sacrifice and discipline yielded success. She moved toward the windows as she tried to pinpoint the exact time that she started questioning every action she had taken in her life, including her choice of profession.

It still felt new to her, the heavy wooden desk and office with a view. Doctor of Psychiatry--words that taunted her because the phrase meant she had arrived, had made it. She took part in a thriving practice, maintained a regular rotation at the Center for Psychiatric and Addiction Treatment at Columbia Arlington Hospital, had an impressive record of successful diagnosis and treatment… everything she had strived for, but still was left wanting more.

Morgan was no longer able to rationalize her inner emptiness given her accomplishments, though logically she knew it was the manifestation of something else, this nagging sensation that tickled the back of her mind. She shook her head, knowing it stemmed from the recurring dream she intentionally repressed in her wakeful hours that continued to nag her subconscious.

Morgan gazed at the window seeing only her reflection. She was a beautiful woman, or at least that was what everyone told her. She had an indefinite beauty about her. She was tall, statuesque really, with long pale blonde hair, hypnotic blue eyes and clear, flawless skin. People who passed her on the street often believed she was European rather than American because she resembled the cool Nordic blondes one might see in Monte Carlo. There was the same untouchable air about her, which drew men to her.

She seldom felt beautiful though, on most days she simply wanted to hide from the attention bestowed upon her. It was something she struggled with, and something she used. Her beauty didn't compensate for the loneliness in her soul, for the longing to fill a void in her life that education, professional recognition and even beauty could not.

Few people were aware of the darkness that lay beneath the surface of her subconscious, of the nightmare that propelled every action and drove her day in and day out from the time she was five. It was something she didn't have power over that had touched her in ways she wanted to forget. And this caused her to maintain fierce control over every other aspect of her life.

During her doctorate program she completed a dissertation on the treatment of traumatic event survivors hoping to compensate for the ugliness she saw in her dreams. But of course she knew there were no survivors, at least not in her nightmare. Her professors often wondered what drove her to write of such morbid events, but considered her insight too penetrating to sacrifice by questioning her motivation. For it was pure, wasn't it? Morgan sighed.

Sasha, her sister, told her once that it controlled her and she knew that it was true. Her friend, Michael, had understood it best, her need to sacrifice in order to make up for the fact that she lived with death in her mind every night. If through her profession she could heal people's minds, she could purge her guilt for the awful vision that plagued her.

Within the scope of her work she diligently tried to understand what prompted recurring dreams, but the answers provided in text upon text did little to help her understanding of it. So the waking memory of it drove her, because it was so clearly her mission in life. And oddly enough, it motivated her to succeed when it may have broken others.

She looked at the ring her grandmother had given her as a graduation present and shook her head. "It's time to stop hiding from it," she said aloud in the empty office. She smirked, impatiently acknowledging for the first time that her nightmare was something more than an association from childhood she had chosen to forget.

Morgan felt dizzy suddenly and put her hands against the glass to steady herself. Despite steady denial throughout most of her life, as her pulse quickened that October morning, she knew her nightmare was going to become real. And the harsh realization, like having cold water thrown in her face, made everything else unimportant. In her bones she felt it, like a dull ache; he was about to become real to her.